My Family Stole My Alpha, I Married Someone Stronger novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Moving the Cards

She seats her husband at her side in front of the pack; her sister hands her the old engagement ring and announces the Midwinter Release.

I picked up my place card and walked down the length of the table.

Two hundred wolves turned their heads to follow me.

Corwin stood at the foot with his hands in his pockets, looking at the omegas' end of the table and saying nothing.

I set my card down in front of the chair beside his.

Then I went back, took his card from the far end, and carried it up to the head.

I put it next to the Alpha's chair, on the left side.

I took Alaric's card from the right side and handed it to the nearest omega, a girl with flour on her sleeve.

"Pass this down," I said. "He can sit wherever he likes."

The girl stared at me and passed it.

Nobody laughed, and nobody moved.

"Tilly," Beatrix said, and her voice was still sweet. "That's the Luna's side. It's tradition."

"Then you sit on it," I said. "I'm sitting with my husband."

I walked back down and took the chair beside Corwin's.

He pulled it out for me.

He waited until I sat, and then he sat, and then he leaned close to my ear.

"You just moved a council seating chart."

"I know."

"I'd like it noted that I was going to do that."

"I know that too."

Perrin dropped into the chair on my other side with a plate already in his hand.

"For the record," he said, "I'm Team Card."

Down the table, a few of the omegas hid their faces in their napkins.

Up at the head, Alaric had come halfway out of the Alpha's chair and stopped there, gripping its arms. His eyes were still gold.

He was not looking at the card or at Beatrix. He was looking down the table at the back of my head.

I could feel it, a pull behind my breastbone that I had spent ten years learning to ignore.

Corwin set a hot roll on my plate without asking.

He laid his hand flat on my back between my shoulder blades, and the pull eased.

Across the table, a man leaned forward.

He was thick-necked, one of Alaric's enforcers.

"You do know it's rude to bring an outsider to the Alpha's table," he said.

Corwin looked up at him.

He didn't say anything. He didn't change his face.

He just let his wolf come forward into the room, slow and heavy, until the candle flames bent.

The enforcer's mouth shut. His eyes dropped to his plate.

All down the table, wolves went quiet and looked at their food.

Corwin picked up his fork.

"Excellent roast," he said to the room.

Alaric made a noise.

It was low, and it came from deep in his chest, and it was not a noise for people.

His hand had gone to the table, close to where Corwin's elbow rested on the wood. The knuckles were white.

Perrin set down his knife. "Nobody panic," he said cheerfully. "My Alpha's just being friendly."

"Alaric," my mother said sharply from the side of the room. "Sit down. Please, sweetheart."

He sat down hard, and his legs were shaking.

Beatrix rose and tapped a spoon against her glass.

"Before the pudding, I have two small things," she said. "First, a welcome gift for my baby sister."

She set a little black velvet box in front of me and smiled down at it.

I knew the shape of it before I opened it.

Inside was a thin gold band with a pale garnet in it.

It was my engagement ring.

Alaric had put it on my finger in the pantry, when I was seventeen and so happy I couldn't stand up straight.

"I kept it safe all these years," Beatrix said. "I thought you'd want it back."

The room was quiet.

Next to me, Corwin did not move a muscle. His hand on my back went very still.

I closed the box.

"That's kind of you," I said. "I'll think about what to do with it."

"Of course." She was still smiling. Her braid shone in the firelight. "And the second thing."

She turned to the pack and spread her hands.

"The Midwinter Release is the night after tomorrow, at moonrise, in the old circle. Many of you remember why we hold it."

A murmur went round the table.

"Tilly, you're the whole reason we can hold it at all." She looked back at me, and her eyes were warm and wet. "Mother didn't tell you?"

I looked across the hall at my mother.

She had gone grey to the lips.

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